College Relevancy

Yesterday, I learned how to identify a gerund from an infinitive from a participial. It took me five total hours and I'm blaming my current state of exhaustion on the fact that diagramming sentences with verbals in them is hard.

But, I mean, there is a plus side.

Yesterday I read this article from Dear English Major: an interview with Nicole Wayland. In it, she mentions taking certain elective classes that will kind of plump up your resume, and when I read that part I immediately thought of my ENGL 451/551 class, Practicum in American Grammar.

Fun Fact: every time I tell someone that I'm taking a class on grammar, their face kind of screws up like there's a bad smell and I get the inevitable question: "Why?"

My answer's the same every time: "Um...it's fun!"

Backtrack to my first paragraph. Yes, it's hard. Yes, it gives me headaches. Yes, it takes me five-six hours just to work through a single chapter and all of the exercises. But, now, I get to explore the inner workings of a sentence. Now, whenever I work on my MS, I mentally deconstruct every sentence I write and I can put a name to all of the little pieces I get out of it.

I love editing; ya'll have probably heard that too many times to count, but it's true. I also feel like this class is helping me with my skills: for example, we just finished a chapter on identifying active and passive voice, and practicing turning active into passive and vice versa. It's useful.

And if it's useful, it gets me the college credits I need, and it'll help me out with a possible future career that I've already learned has stolen my heart? Well, get out of the way everyone who says English degrees and grammar is useless. Rae's coming through.

If you're still in college like me, or even high school, just remember to take classes that are both relevant to your degree and useful for whatever future career you've chosen. It makes homework feel a little less like work, and a little more like...home?

(Okay, too cheesy?)

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Gerunds, elective classes, and the sea of career choices. What they all have in common for @Rae_Slater (Click to Tweet)

In college? Why not choose courses and activities that cater to what you love? (Click to Tweet)